First, a question: Which of the following years wasn't or won't be a leap year?

1. 1824

2. 1900

3. 2000

4. 2016

Good luck with that — and with your peas and beans and sheep, too. This is a leap year, you know.

Good day and welcome to Feb. 29, which comes around once every four years, except when it doesn't. (That's a hint to the above question. See the bottom for the answer — and no Googling.)

The extra day in the Gregorian calendar we use is needed because an average year is actually slightly less than six hours shorter than a solar year. We have to make up the time somewhere.

That's pretty smart. There are other advantages and disadvantages practical and not to leap days/years. Here are but a few from reality and folklore:

ADVANTAGES

1. Extra day's pay.Sure, it's a Wednesday, but we could use the extra money. Wait, that means more in taxes, no? So is this good or bad? A local CPA mulled the question for the better part of a day before reaching a conclusion.

"The effects are so immaterial in most scenarios," said Terrell Roe of Delmar. "I've got to be honest with you: There is no noticeable effect, except for a little bit of extra time in that year."

2. Presidential year.Feel free to slide this into the disadvantages.

3. Sadie Hawkins lives.This is a melding of old folklore/rule — a woman could propose to a man in Ireland on a leap day (in a leap year in Scotland) — which predates the annual American tradition of Sadie Hawkins Day that grew out of the Li'l Abner comic strip.

4. Olympic year.Leap years means one thing to many: Break out the five rings and timpani.

5. Stretches out your lifetime.Hey, you get to wring that many extra days out of your age.

DISADVANTAGES

1. You might get ripped off. If you are on a fixed annual contract you WORK A DAY FOR FREE.

2. Worst month of the year gets that much longer.Why couldn't we get a July 32nd?

3. Baa, baa, bad sheep.More folklore: Crops, especially beans and peas, fare poorly in leap years, and Scots felt such years were bad for sheep.

4. Add a Monday, lose a Monday.Christmas gets pushed to Tuesday, depriving a natural three-day weekend break, and Dec. 31 gives us one more work Monday in the year (if you actually go to work that day).

5. Pity the leap year baby. Sure, it sounds cool to be born on Feb. 29. But there are drawbacks.

"I always reassess my life in dramatic ways every four years: 'Where was I in my life when I was 16? 24? 32? 44?'" said local writer and professor Daniel Nester, who turns 44 Wednesday. "I often think about my life quadrennially, like an Olympics organizer or something. People remember my birthday more than others'. College friends leave messages at all hours of the night, sounding stoned. I don't get my real birthday three-quarters of the time, which was traumatic as a child."

That's a leap year, in ways cool and not.

Oh, the answer to the question: It's B, 1900. There is no leap year every round 100 years, except for ones divisible by 400. (Hey, we didn't make the rules.) So 2000 was in fact a leap year. But 2100 won't be. By then Nester will have celebrated his 32nd birthday.